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It was supposed to be a routine little visit to the park. But in fairness, Buck should have known better. Very few things were routine where Theo was involved.
He also should have known better than to let Theo bring his favorite toy to the park. Favorite toys were sacred. Parks were danger zones. The two things? Did not go well together.
But Theo looked up a him, clutching his little toy helicopter -
(Yes, maybe Buck had deserved the side-eye that his teammates had given him for choosing a helicopter. One that looked suspiciously like an army helicopter. But he also didn't figure it was much of their business. Since Theo had come around, it had been increasingly easy to think less of his co-workers' habit of thinking less of him.)
- And what could Buck do? He had to say yes, that was very obvious to anyone.
Theo had grabbed him by the knees and given him a big hug, and Buck had almost convinced himself that hey, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Famous last words were still famous last words, even when they were only spoken internally.
~*~
Theo did an admirable job of dodging puddles and keeping a firm grip on the helicopter, even when he was scaling ladders and monkey bars and swings.
So strictly speaking - it was not Theo's fault that the helicopter died a valiant death that day at the park. No, the villain of the great helicopter disaster was a goldendoodle, because of course it was.
Theo sat down so that Evan could inspect a boo boo - one gotten from that morning, completely unrelated to the park - and Theo set the little helicopter down on the ground beside him.
While Buck was in the middle of inspecting the boo boo in question, a golden blur ran past them and grabbed the toy and bolted.
"MY COPTER!" Theo yelled, which seemed to only make the dog run faster.
The owner of the golden doodle did catch up to them, eventually, looking very unimpressed by Theo's distress or Buck's irritation.
She handed the currently very destroyed helicopter over to Buck. "You really should be more careful with your crotch demon," she said, with the kind of self-righteousness that would have made Margaret Buckley proud. "Not everyone's idea of self-fulfillment involves kids, you know."
And Buck would have had a strongly worded response, but she and her demon dog from hell stomped off - also self-righteously - while Buck had two hands full of a screaming and crying child in his hands.
"Yeah," Buck said. "I get it. That whole thing sucked. I'm sorry about your helicopter, Theo."
"THE MEAN DOGGY BROKE IT."
"Yes, yes, she did," Buck agreed. "But hey! It's okay, because - "
"NO IT ISN'T!"
Oh, that was an impressive foot stomp, really. Ten points for the foot stomp alone.
"Hey, it is okay, you know why? We are going to go get you a new one."
Theo stopped crying long enough to sniffle. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and asked, tentatively, "Really? You promise?"
"I promise. In fact, we can go now, if you want."
~*~
And that was how they found themselves standing in the toy aisle in the middle of the day while Theo knelt down and examined the "soldiers" section. Buck was standing there, thinking to himself that Theo had made a lot of progress in the past couple of months. He also thought he should feel more guilty than he did about the amount of time he spent counting all the ways Connor and Kameron had been shitty parents.
They, like the Buckleys before them, hadn't been bad people, but they had been bad parents.
He saw it in the way that Theo didn't squirm as much now that he had clothes that didn't irritate his skin.
He saw it in the way that Theo didn't throw tantrums at meal time, now that he had food that didn't irritate his sensory issues.
He saw it in the way that Theo didn't go to a shitty fucking daycare that didn't understand kids like him, and therefore, there weren't any calls to fire stations reporting that the kid needed to be fucking rescued.
He saw it in the way Theo thrived once he had a diagnosis that fit him, a therapist who specialized in ADHD kids, and a parent who put some effort into it instead of refusing to take blame or responsibility.
And so, Buck was standing there watching his son be very focused on choosing between helicopters A or B - which all frankly looked the same to Buck - when he heard a little girl's voice from the next aisle over.
"And then they bought me a My Little Pony Lego kit. Can you imagine! Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I'm not a baby. Honestly!"
Buck thought that was a perfectly good explanation, but that belief got interrupted by a deep laugh that made Buck's heart do a summersault in his chest.
"That's very reasonable, Piper," Tommy said.
Buck was recycling every conversation he'd ever had with Tommy to see if he was supposed to know who Piper was, when the voices from the next aisle over turned down their aisle.
"Tommy," he blurted out, before he could really help himself.
Tommy stopped looking at the little girl beside him, and turned to look at Buck.
"Evan," he said, sounding almost as unsure as Buck felt. Then his gaze traveled to Theo.
"This is Theo," Buck explained. "He's my son. A goldendoodle ate his helicopter."
Tommy raised his eyebrows, and a small grin spread over his face - the kind that he'd worn that day, during the funeral with Billy Boils. "I used to hate it when that happened to me in Afghanistan."
Buck felt a laugh starting to bubble in his chest, but before he let it out entirely, Tommy placed a hand on Piper's shoulder.
"This is Piper, my daughter," he said, as if the black curls and blue eyes didn't give away her DNA entirely.
"Daughter?" Buck echoed. He was trying to think of a polite way to ask how the hell did that happen when Tommy threw some mercy at him.
"I wasn't always sure about my number on the Kinsey Scale, Evan," Tommy said gently.
Tommy was always gentle when Buck was saying something stupid, Buck thought. Which definitely explained why he had left the 118, because Tommy never would have fit in there.
Piper, who looked back and forth between him and Tommy, finally announced, "My mom died. And my stepdad sucked, so I came to live with Tommy. He's pretty cool so far."
Theo who had been ignoring them all while looking at his helicopters, looked up. "My mom died too. So did my dad. So I came to live with my other dad. He's also cool!"
Tommy's face got that sympathetic look that always made Buck want to drop to his knees, but doing so in a toy aisle really was frowned upon.
"It sounds like we both have some pretty long stories to tell," Buck said. "M-maybe we could have coffee sometime."
"Coffee tastes like butt," Piper informed them.
"It tastes LIKE POOP," Theo said loudly. "I drank some once when Mom and Dad One weren't looking."
A very weighted hand wrapped around Buck's heart and squeezed at that moment, but Theo didn't look like he was going to cry or get upset. More like stating a fact, so Buck took that as a sign that his therapist was right and sometimes kids really did just process things on their own schedule.
Buck was a little bit jealous to be honest.
"I'd like that, Evan," Tommy said. "I'm free on Saturday, if you are."
"Yeah," Buck said. "I'm free."
"Good," Tommy answered. "I'll text you later, and we can plan it out. Get the chinook, Theo. It's the coolest of the helicopters."
"Which one is that?" Theo asked.
"It's the big ugly one!" Piper said, squatting down to show him. "You should get the Blackhawk instead!"
"The big ugly one. My kid, ready to fight the whole army," Tommy mused.
"Sounds familiar," Buck pointed out.
Tommy laughed, the sound weaseling into Buck's stomach and settling comfortably there. "You have a point. Talk to you later, Evan."
Piper waved goodbye to them with whatever lego set she had in her hands, and skipped off with Tommy. Tommy very much did not skip.
Buck watched them go for a minute, but then Theo pulled at Buck's shirt. "Can we get both?" he asked.
"Sure, why not?" Buck said, scooping him up into his arms.
"Yay!" Theo said in relief. In fact, he was so relieved that he leaned over and kissed Buck on the cheek. "Thank goodness! I couldn't pick at all! Can we also get some legos?"
"Sure, why not?" It was, after all, the day that Tommy Kinard had returned to his life. Buck could and would share his good fortune with everyone.